In January, Ibanez unveiled an updated version of the ARCH ENEMY bassist Sharlee D’Angelo’s signature SDB bass. Inspired by the company’s Iceman model, the axe features a white flat finish and cosmo black hardware, neck-through construction, a Mono-Rail IV bridge, and comes factory-tuned to drop-C.

The SDB2 is built with a mahogany body, 5-piece maple and bubinga neck, and a rosewood fingerboard with iron cross inlays. It’s outfitted with a pair of Ibanez’s Passive Full Range humbuckers matched with their EQB-IIDX 2-band EQ. The Ibanez SDB2 Bass will be shipping this Spring with a street price of around $899 US.

As previously reported, THE NIGHT FLIGHT ORCHESTRA, the new ‘classic rock’ project with D’Angelo and Björn “Speed” Strid from SOILWORK, has signed with Coroner Records for the worldwide release of its debut album.

The band is currently recording the album which will be released in June.

The Night Flight Orchestra started like so many others as an innocent yet serious drunken idea when Björn Strid and David Andersson (MEAN STREAK, Soilwork session player) were on the road together somewhere in North America in 2007. Björn and David were bonding over what they considered classic or not, from rock n’ roll conspiracies to being arrested in a lobby with nothing but leather pants on.

It didn’t take long before bass player Sharlee D’Angelo joined forces as well as keyboard player Richard Larsson (Von Benzo) and drummer Jonas Källsbäck (Mean Streak).

The goal was to reclaim the ’70’s/early ’80’s sense for classic melody, the forgotten recipe to a timeless song, preferably a song mentioning a city, street name or an exhilarating alcoholic beverage. Anything that will have you spitting out the word classic.

Further details about official release date, tracklist, artwork will be revealed soon.

Russ Rosenfeld, a longtime representative for Hoshino, the Japanese trading company that owns the Ibanez brand name, appears to have confirmed rumors that SLIPKNOT will headline this year’s edition of the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival. Rosenfeld‘s slip of the tongue was captured in the short video clip below while he was introducing the new line of Mick Thomson (SLIPKNOT) Ibanez signature guitars at this past weekend’s NAMM show in Anaheim, California.

The official Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival lineup is expected to be announced on Wednesday, January 25.

Last July, SLIPKNOT completed a three-week European tour that was the band’s first run of dates since the death of bassist Paul Gray a year earlier. A one-off appearance at the Rock In Rio festival in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil followed in September.

SLIPKNOT singer Corey Taylor and percussionist Shawn “Clown” Crahan confirmed that the band will tour the U.S. this summer.

Taylor has repeatedly stated in interviews that it’s “still too soon” for the band to be thinking about recording a new studio album following Gray‘s death.

The singer has been touring with his other band STONE SOUR and has indicated that he would like to return to the studio with that group next.